Tributes Radio

First review of the new Cirque show 'Viva Elvis!'...

I was invited to attend the final dress rehearsal of 'Viva Elvis!' (the last show prior to Grand Opening and paid customers) two nights ago. For anyone who missed out on Thanksgiving, here is your helping of turkey. This show answers the question "What is a French Canadian acrobat's impression of Elvis' songs?" and nothing more. It will be a terrific disappointment for any Elvis fans. The entire (and lengthy) show hangs as if suspended at the moment prior to the entrance of the star... but no star ever appears. Here are the cogent points:

1. There is no Elvis presence at all. Elvis never appears, either in character form or musically. Unlike the well-received and -conceived 'Beatles-Love' show, this show doesn't even use Elvis' versions of his songs!
Instead a French-Canadian band plays their new arrangements of all the songs live.

2. Except for some screen shots, Elvis doesn't appear in his show. Cirque chose not to use an Elvis performer;
they had hired one from just south of Quebec for some scenes, but fired him just before the show's dress
rehearsals. Some of the dancers, such as a stilt-walker, wear Elvis costume variants, but again, there is no
focal Elvis represented.

3. The usual splits, aerial stuff and contortionists don't create any real excitement. It all looks completely like a
rehash of all of the prior Cirque shows in Vegas (right now there are about 7). Nothing new here.

4. The rearranged musical versions of Elvis' songs don't accomplish the single most important thing about any
show about Elvis: the importance of his abilities as a vocalist to present any song at its best. Go to WalMart
and buy one of those 'HITS OF ELVIS / performed by the New Harmony Singers' CD's and save your money.
It is the same thing, for $100 less.

At the 1 hour mark, my friend who I attended the show with turned to me and whispered 'my god, we're only up to 1968 so far'. This echoed my sentiments. The show ended up at about 1:40 long and went nowhere the whole time.

Had Cirque chosen to, they could have drawn from a deep pool of Vegas talent, from Elvis performers to the musicians, and created a show with a tremendous Elvis feel: rockabilly music done right, dancers who learned the Elvis moves from expert ETAs, even tech people who lit and mixed Elvis REAL shows here at the Int'l/Hilton. They could have nailed it... instead they brought in 'their people' from Quebec and made a show that misses all the marks for bringing audiences the 'heart' of Elvis' popularity - his own sincerity, talent and magnetism.

Elvis never even entered this building.

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Comment by ElvisInVegas - Greg Miller on January 1, 2011 at 2:55pm: Keith, you said a mouthful. You are exactly right on every score... the CD is a ripoff and an attempt to ride Elvis' name for one more wave, and in doing so so poorly they are moving Elvis towards obscurity. In the coming months/years someone will request a song from a radio station or search, a classic like 'Suspicious Minds', and will hear this version instead of THE REAL one, and will come away thinking 'Hmm, that isn't very good, why did people get excited by Elvis Presley back then?'. Extreme case? maybe, but that is what this kind of crap will do to his memory.

Comment by Keith Boswell on December 17, 2010 at 6:36am: The actual music on the CD and in the show is a real Disgrace to the actual music that Elvis recorded.

There has been a heavy discussion about this new Re=Mix world of Elvis music. Seems the trend is trying to get younger people to listen to Elvis with cheap rap thud cabaret style of tunes.

This is a big shame and not even a close representation of Elvis's music. Some say oh well it is still Elvis singing...maybe so but the pitch has been altered, and dubbed and chopped to the point of such poorly done work that the CD just is not making much money at all. Well considering that they tossed in some woman singing songs, and not as a duo but as a solo singer of Elvis's music and considering the drastic change of the music all together, eliminating those famous hall of fame artists that Elvis employed..no wonder it is boring, bad and just plain cheap. Why would anyone want to go listen to this while some very poor representative lip sinks to Elvis music? In these days we would be tossed off the stage for this and in our opinion Cirque has really done a poor job at the entire show. RCA isn't even pushing sales for this CD after probably coming to the same conclusion that the Re-mix was an expensive project with poor results. Don't waste your money on this CD you will be really disappointed.

Comment by ElvisInVegas - Greg Miller on January 5, 2010 at 8:31pm: Clearly, the disingenuous 'Cirque' people never intended for Days (who isn't from Vegas, only moved here thinking he'd be in this show) or any other Elvis (like the excellent local ones who already knew how this show operates) to be in the show. They simply used him at low 'rehearsal' pay to teach their dancers some EP moves, then cut him off at the legs; never paid him his promised salary at all. I know the 'Gladys' who was understudying that part as well and she smelled this coming. What a low-class stunt by CDS to string these people along with falsehoods during rehearsals, then can them right before the holidays.

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